The original photograph has been withdrawn at the
demand of the photographer.
The graphic here just shows the altitude of the disaster, along with
an electrical
interpretation of the withdrawn photograph.

It has now been more than two years since
the fiery destruction of the shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003.
The disaster killed all seven astronauts on board and dealt one of
the most severe blows ever to America’s space program.

But as astronauts now prepare to ride
another shuttle into space, few Americans are aware of the most
critical issue raised by the Columbia disaster. Did a super-bolt of
lightning--called "megalightning"--strike Columbia, causing the
breakup of the craft?

Shocking evidence
that this is so includes the image above, taken from the TV
program "Megalightning." It shows a purplish corkscrew trail of
"something" merging with the ionized plasma trail of Columbia
early in its descent, while Columbia was still 63 kilometers
above the earth. One might have expected this image to catch the
attention of media around the world. But before that could
happen, both the camera and the photograph were examined by NASA
scientists.

Most shocking was
the explanation given by experts who examined the photograph.
They said that the luminous corkscrew trail was an "artefact"
caused by a camera wobble. The explanation left critics aghast,
since the Columbia trail in the photo is crisp with no evidence
of camera movement. Nor is any wobble evident in other similar
photographs taken at the time. The explanation relegates to
"coincidence" the fact that the Columbia trail brightens
precisely at its juncture with the corkscrew trail. This
brightening is an electricallypredictable occurrence
when two plasma channels merge.

Proponents of the "Electric Universe" have
maintained for many years that ideology within official science has
limited the ability of working scientists to look at pictures
objectively, to see what would otherwise be obvious. Popular
doctrines say that Earth is a neutral body in the neutral
environment of the Sun. When lightning strikes, its source must lie
in the mysterious ability of clouds and temperature gradients to
"separate charge." A bolt of lightning in the rarified atmosphere 63
kilometers above the earth is unthinkable within this framework.
Therefore, the alleged lightning strike on Columbia could not have
happened.

Alternative viewpoints do not suffer from
these limitations. In the Electric Universe, our Earth is an
integral part of solar system circuitry, fed by currents streaming
along our arm of the Milky Way. An electric field between Earth’s
surface and the ionosphere, separated by an insulating layer of
atmosphere, is responsible for thunderstorms. In weather conditions
favoring breakdown of this insulation, electric currents leak
through the atmospheric layer (in the fashion of a "leaky
capacitor"), creating the electrical displays we see in
thunderstorms. And this is why, far above thunderstorms,
meteorologists have discovered powerful discharges called "red
sprites" and "blue jets" reaching many kilometers into the
ionosphere. In fact, electrical interactions associated with
powerful thunderstorms have now been traced outward to the Van Allen
Belt.

Since the discharge of a sprite is diffused
over a large area, meteorologists have doubted that a sprite could
damage aircraft. But here is how Wallace Thornhill, a pioneer of the
Electric Universe hypothesis, views the issue:

"The electromagnetic "pinch" effect will
ensure that the energy of that sprite will be focused onto any large
electrical conductor that blunders into its domain – as we see in
the time-lapse photograph. The brightening of Columbia’s trail where
the lightning joined it is due to the sudden release of energy in
the more dense plasma of that trail. It is that kind of energy that
was released over a few square centimeters of Columbia’s wing.
Temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees would have resulted.
The Shuttle’s tiles are designed to withstand 2900 C."

This is where Professor Edgar Bering, a
physicist at the University of Houston in Texas, comes in. He heads
a team from NASA's National Scientific Balloon Facility to study
sprites by flying a high-altitude balloon above major thunderstorms.
His work, preceding the Columbia disaster, led to some surprising
conclusions about sprites. He found that the charge released in
sprites is not generated within the clouds, but lies in the mesosphereabove the thunderstorms. And the energy is far
greater than previously thought.

But according to Thornhill, all of the data
will fall into place if the charge in the mesosphere "comes from
space via the ionosphere above," not from charge separation within
the clouds below. It will then make sense that Bering found the
current released in a sprite to be around 12,000 amperes, rather
than the 3,000 amperes predicted by conventional models of
cloud-generated charge.

It does not appear, however, that NASA
scientists have followed Bering’s discovery to its logical
conclusion: "None of the existing models will survive when people
finally pay attention to what our data actually says," Bering
writes.

If the fate of Columbia was indeed the
result of megalightning, then scientific misperception has cost
human lives. And it is now placing other lives at risk as well.